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ECCAS Hydromet Forum

November 14-16, 2018

Libreville, Gabon

More than 70% of natural disasters in Central Africa are of hydro-meteorological origin. The region is vulnerable to floods, droughts, and other weather, water and climactic hazards. Finding solutions to this challenge presents an opportunity for governments, technical experts, academics, civil society and key stakeholders to strategize, coordinate, and improve meteorological, hydrological and climatic—hydromet—services for development.

Hydromet services are essential for scaling up resilience to climate and disaster risks, so Central Africa's hard-won gains and development aspirations for growth can be preserved and improved, and so that lives and livelihoods can be protected.

Working towards this goal, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) will hold its inaugural hydromet forum for Central Africa. The ECCAS Hydromet Forum, co-hosted by the Government of Gabon and the World Bank Group, offers a platform for climate-resilient development and adaptation planning through the improvement of hydromet services as a tool for development.

The event will demonstrate the benefits of hydromet service delivery across a range of sectors including agriculture, water, natural resource management, environment, transport, civil aviation, energy and disaster risk management.

The forum is organized as part of the implementation of the Africa Hydromet Program and the ACP-EU Regional Economic Communities Program to enhance and improve the coordination, planning, policy and capacity for disaster risk reduction and resilience across Africa.

The forum will draw on best practices from the implementation of effective hydromet strategies throughout Africa, and will propose concrete actions to address the weather, water and climate challenges especially facing Central Africa. The objectives are to:

1. Develop leadership and capacity building for hydromet services as a global public good for climate risk management and adaptation

2. To serve as a platform for the exchange of knowledge, information, ideas and evaluation of progress made towards the modernization of hydromet services for Central Africa

3. Offer an opportunity for development partners to strategize on the needs of sectors and user groups for ownership and contextualization of programs and investments

4. Generate consensus and awareness on the benefits of investments in meteorological, hydrological and climate services and early warning systems

5. Strengthen country and stakeholder ownership of climate and weather service programs and results to ensure sustainability

The expected result is to develop of a roadmap or strategic action plan for the modernization of hydromet services for member states and in the ECCAS region

The forum offers a collaborative platform to support the modernization of the hydromet services at national, sub-regional and regional levels, in partnership with other institutions such as:

The Economic Community of Central African States Secretariat

The Government of Gabon

The World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR)

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

The African Development Bank (AfDB)

AFD (French Development Agency)

World Food Programme (WFP)

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The forum is strongly supported by the Building Disaster Resilience to Natural Hazards in Sub-Saharan African Program, an initiative of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, funded by the European Union (EU). It is executed under the Africa Hydromet Program, which is supported by the Government of Japan, GFDRR, the World Bank and partners.